Review
Genre and Mood
Bobby Nourmand‘s Smokin’ Joe sits where deep house meets disco and blues, a laid-back groove with a smoky, after-hours feel. The mood is groovy, chill and hypnotic: dance music that smoulders rather than explodes.
Song Summary
Smokin’ Joe is a study in cool restraint. A rolling bassline carries the track, a bluesy vocal drifts over it, and the melodic touches fill in the corners without crowding the groove. Nourmand, a Los Angeles producer, says it began with “some coffee, a guitar, Ableton, a note pad” and a friend; he sent a basic sketch to the label, then spent a long time writing melodies, arranging the vocals and mixing. He describes his sound as “timeless, classic, psychedelic”, shaped by his mother’s disco records and his father’s rock and roll, and you can hear both in a track that swings like a club record but sounds like it grew out of a guitar.
Musical Breakdown
The edit embedded here is short and tight, getting to its groove quickly and keeping it there with only small shifts along the way.
Intro
A crisp kick and light percussion establish an easy, mid-tempo pulse, with a hint of warmth in the chords.
Build-up
The bassline slides in, funky and supple, and the groove settles into a laid-back strut.
Main Section
The bluesy vocal arrives, soulful and slightly weary, floating over the bass while subtle melodic layers shimmer in the background.
Bridge
The beat steps back for a moment and the vocal and chords hang in the air, a brief pause that heightens the return of the bass.
Climax
The full groove comes back together, bass, beat and vocal locked in, the track at its most hypnotic.
Outro
The layers fall away gradually, leaving the bassline to roll out on its own.
Concepts in Focus
The engine of Smokin’ Joe is its bassline. In deep house the bass often does the work a chorus does in a pop song: it is the part your body remembers. Listen to how the bass enters in the build-up and how the vocal floats on top of it rather than leading it.
The track’s story is a lesson in the dj mix as a launch pad. Before it had a release date it was a mystery track on The Magician’s Magic Tape 55, the Belgian DJ’s monthly mix series, where it caught fire; listeners spent months trying to identify it before it came out on his own label, Potion, in January 2016. Nourmand says hearing it in that mix shocked him.
It also shows the extended mix at work. The Potion release on Discogs is the Extended Mix at 4:35, with room at the start and the end for a DJ to blend it; the version embedded here, on Spinnin’ Records’ channel, is the shorter Edit for listening.
Artistic Context
Bobby Nourmand is based in Los Angeles, and before Smokin’ Joe he was known for reworking classic rock, including a take on The Beatles’ “Because”, into modern dance music. Smokin’ Joe, catalogue number POTION004, was released on 11 January 2016 on Potion, the label run by The Magician (Stephen Fasano), whose Magic Tapes series was one of the most closely watched tastemaker mixes in melodic house at the time.
Impact and Reception
Dancing Astronaut called it easily the biggest release of Nourmand’s career, and he said he felt early on that it could be big; after the Magic Tape premiere it was played by many well-known DJs. It belongs on this playground as an example of how much atmosphere a simple groove can create. Play it as the evening begins and let it set the tone.
